The Bronx is home to residents of Co-op CityParkchester, Morris Park and Hunts Point will soon have new Metro-North stations; with conditions attached. The four new commuter hubs are Approval for rezoning by the New York City Council on August 15. These stations will anchor a 6-mile new development corridor that will include 7,000 new homes in 46 blocks.
The long-awaited Co-op City Station will shorten commute times between the Mitchell-Lama complex, which is home to over 40,000 people, and the rest of New York City. Today, an express bus connects Co-op City residents to Midtown Manhattan in an hour, and the new rail station will reduce that commute time to 27 minutes.
Parkchester, an equally large complex built in the 1930s by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, will provide a 20-minute commute to Midtown. The new access will also connect Bronx residents to Stamford and Connecticut more broadly.
Transportation always promotes growth, but what kind of growth will rezoning bring? Opinions are divided on whether rezoning will provide a societal benefit or exacerbate inequality in New York City’s poorest borough. While the mayor’s office and several Bronx City Council members support this latest approval, several civic groups see it as a Trojan horse for gentrification.
The housing gap
Of the 7,000 new units, 1,700 will be priced below market, according to the mayor’s office. The stations are scheduled for completion in 2027, and the development corridor will be completed in the next decade. The New York City Council has also pledged $500 million in investments to improve parks, schools, roads and infrastructure between Co-op City and Hunts Point.
“To address our city’s housing and affordability crisis, we must create more housing for New Yorkers,” said Adrienne Adams, New York City Council Speaker. “This rezoning of the historic district, along with the nearly $500 million the Council has secured for local infrastructure improvements, will have a lasting positive impact on the residents of the Bronx and our entire city.”
The approval of the rezoning on August 15 was led by Bronx Council members Amanda Farías, Rafael Salamanca, Kevin Riley and Kristy Marmorato, City Planning Director Dan Garodnick and others. Community boards (CB) in the Bronx are divided on whether the rezoning was a good idea or not: CB11 and CB9, which includes Parkchester, voted for the rezoning; while CB10, which includes Co-op City, voted against it.
CB10 District Manager Matt Cruz voted no on “Concerns about affordability, building height and lack of home ownership opportunities.” Cruz said he would prefer to see lower buildings (5-7 stories) and more co-ops and condos, rather than luxury apartments in high-rises. Representatives of CB9 and CB10 welcome the new stations, but are equally concerned about gentrification. Local groups such as Take Back the Bronx, Mothers on the Move and People Power Movement fought hard against the rezoning.
Many of the lots along the 6-mile development corridor are occupied by light industrial buildings. Soon, mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings will be built there, financed by Climaxa real estate company that began buying up properties in Parkchester approx. 2015 in anticipation of the rezoning, alongside other developers. The rezoning is part of Mayor Eric Adams City of Yes Housing program that 500,000 new units in the next decade.
The new building complex will run parallel to Hutchinson Parkway, a highway completed in 1941 by Robert Moses that separates the predominantly black, AAPI and Latinx neighborhoods of Parkchester and Morris Park to the west from the single-family home neighborhoods of Schuylerville and Throggs Neck to the east, which are nearly 50 percent white.
In recent years, Throggs Neck and Schuylerville residents have mobilized to stop the rezoning, forming coalitions such as Bronx coalition against upzoningThe aim of this organization is to “Preserving the existing beautiful suburban feel for families.” There was also considerable opposition to the rezoning plan from the west side of Hutchinson Parkway, where the area is much more diverse, but for hidden political reasons.
A brief history of rezoning in the Bronx
The resistance to the rezoning began in 2015, the same year that Mayor Bill de Blasio first brought up the ideaIn 2017, protesters protested against gentrification marched along Southern Boulevard in Hunts Point against the proposal. Around this time, the Regional Plan Association (RPA) appreciated 71 percent of Bronx residents are at risk of displacement due to gentrification. Similar demonstrations took place on Bruckner Boulevard and Jerome Avenue to the west.
In 2018, planning workshops began between Parkchester residents and the Planning Department to reach consensus on the rezoning. Michael Allen, a professor at West Virginia University, attended several of these workshops for his doctoral dissertation. In interviews with Parkchester residents, Allen found that New York City Planning Department officials often “ignored” comments from Parkchester residents in Zoom meetings. “I already believe that everything will change once this station comes,” one Parkchester resident told Allen in 2023.
Today, groups like Take Back the Bronx and Save Section 9 (SS9) would rather see government subsidies go to existing public housing stock rather than luxury development. “We’ve seen similar plans before, and they’ve never centered or helped Bronx residents,” says Ramona Ferreyra, founder of SS9. “Ironically, these boroughs have seen a rise in NYCHA privatization, leading to rent instability and a loss of tenant protections.”
